Ideal Labels offers complete digital flexo solution with the help of Esko and Williamson

Esko announces that Ideal Labels Inc., a
leading provider of pressure-sensitive labels for print companies and print
brokers, is delivering a complete digital flexo solution and boosting
productivity and quality with the Esko CDI 2350 flexo plate imager and DeskPack
prepress software modules, sold and installed with the help of Williamson
Printing Materials Limited.

Family owned and operated since it opened
its doors in 1994 in Scarborough, Ontario, Ideal Labels leverages its technical
expertise and high level of service to meet customers’ demanding requirements.
A big part of its success these 20 years is its ability to deliver quick
turnaround, with a large selection of dies and in-house platemaking
capabilities. Now, with Esko’s technology at the forefront, Ideal Labels is
able to fulfill these requirements minus some of the difficulties that it
experienced previously.

“Film did not offer much consistency, due to
the ever changing chemistry and other variables such as laser intensity, film
density and temperature,” Kailas says. “Plates would come out differently
within one job, and from job-to-job, depending on the state of the chemicals.
Now, with the CDI we are consistent from job to job.”

“We wanted to have a more competitive edge
over the local print shops in our area and produce a final product to the best
quality flexo printing would allow. That meant implementing Esko's CDI to our
workflow to create highly detailed plates with accurate dots and easy
repeatability from job to job,” Kailas continues, reflecting on the reason for
the CDI installation. “With films and chemistry, dots may vary in size and
become smaller or larger, even lf you are imaging the same job. The CDI
eliminates a majority of the variables associated with film and as a result the
plates are always consistent, which means the jobs look the same. The settings
also remain the same. In fact, nothing changes unless we change it ourselves.”

The CDI also gives Ideal Labels the ability
to image different line screens simultaneously. “I can image jobs of different
line screens all at once on one large sheet of plate material,” Kailas says.
”We used to have to produce them one at a time. For instance, we had to image
100 lpi screen jobs separately from 133 lpi or 150 lpi screen jobs. Being able
to gang up images with different line screens on the same sheet of plate
material saves us time and allows us to begin prepress for other jobs while the
CDI runs.”

Faster
makeready, faster to press

Ideal is able to devote the time it used to
spend in prepress and platemaking to actual production. The CDI solution also
gets plate material to the press faster. As part of its Esko technology
solution, Ideal uses Esko’s DeskPack modules, including trapping and
preflighting. The DeskPack collection of packaging prepress plugins for Adobe®
Illustrator® and Adobe® Photoshop® provide a full-fledged packaging prepress
application for label providers.

“We were using Illustrator for a majority of
the prepress and trapping, and Quark Xpress for the step and repeating,”
explains Kailas. “Before we had DeskPack, everything was done manually,” he
adds. “It was extremely cumbersome to set up a job. With DeskPack, we preset
everything for automatic trapping, and, depending on the job, can have multiple
presets. Previously, for every job, I had to take my time and meticulously
examine each label to figure out what had to be trapped in order for the label
to be printed as easily as possible. It was the same with step & repeat.
With the Preflight, PowerLayout and Power Trapper modules, a job can be ready
to go with a few clicks of a button in just minutes without any guesswork or
the fear of mistakes being made.” DeskPack allows Ideal to set multiple presets
simultaneously, with rules and exceptions to trap the file according to each
job’s specifications.

“Because we aren’t trapping manually, what
used to take us up to six hours from start to finish for four or five complex
jobs now barely takes any time at all,” says Kailas. “Now, we are more capable
of meeting the quick turnaround times of today's demanding customers who needed
their order yesterday, which is the bulk of our work. Esko's software and CDI
simplifies our work and doesn't compromise quality for speed.”

Pleasing
customers

Customers, too, are happy with the results.
“We were only able to run 150 lpi, which was okay for their needs, says Kailas.
“Now, our standard is 200 lpi, and they are more than happy with the quality.
The color preproduction is excellent and the dot gain is very minimal for flexo
printing, due to CDI’s capability of creating very crisp lines and no
distortion in the sizes of the dots. Distortion was an issue when we used film.
Our plates are very accurate and can be reproduced very easily, from
job-to-job.”

Kailas, who runs Ideal Labels with his
brother and father, trained for a week-and-a-half, learning the ins and outs
about digital platemaking. At the shop, he takes care of prepress and
platemaking, and his brother and father handle the bulk of the print and
production. Kailas also works in the printing area, mostly for process color
jobs.

Ideal Labels purchased its CDI and DeskPack
Tools from Williamson Printing Materials Limited in Grimsby, Ontario.
“Williamson has been very reliable and helped us every step of the way,” Kailas
comments. “They fingerprinted our presses and helped us set the dot gain
curves. They were there to help when Esko came in to set up, making sure
everything was okay.”

Kailas notes both Esko and Williamson were
very helpful. “Whenever they are in the area, their salesmen and field
technicians double-check our system to see if it is running properly,” remarks
Kailas. "They just drop by to see how things are going.”

Overall, using the Esko system and workflow
has meant a much simpler process to get a job out. Going forward, Ideal Labels
plans to look into new DeskPack modules that will help further maximize
efficiency for its workflow.

As for its current Esko solution, says
Kailas, “It’s a lifesaver. Basically if you want to draw up more time for
production, and want to ensure consistent jobs, invest in it. It will
definitely improve the quality of the work you do and make it look more
professional.”

The best part of the Esko technology
solution? “We aren’t putting in unnecessary late hours to work on prepress and
platemaking,” Kailas says. And customers are getting a better product.

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